Lawsuit: State licensed Shoreline sex offender as foster father

Convicted of sex offenses as a teen, foster father repeatedly raped preschooler

By LEVI PULKKINEN, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Published 10:06 pm, Thursday, January 23, 2014

A boy repeatedly raped by his state-licensed foster father -- a convicted sex offender -- has sued the state, claiming he should never have been placed in that Shoreline home.

The boy was placed at age 4 with Richard Jason Boothby, a licensed foster parent who’d been convicted as a teen of sexually assaulting children. Boothby, 40, has since admitted to sexually abusing the boy and several other children.

Then licensed as a foster parent by the Department of Social and Health Services, Boothby is currently serving an 18-year sentence in state prison for repeatedly raping the boy during the year he spent in Boothby’s home. Investigators contend Boothby molested at least three children living in his home.

In a lawsuit filed on the boy’s behalf, his attorneys claim Boothby’s childhood history of sex crimes should have disqualified him from being paid by the state to care for children who had no one else to turn to. They also claim concerned reports made to Child Protective Services workers while the boy was in Boothby’s home were ignored.

DSHS “granted the Boothby home a foster license in the face of overwhelming information that should have prevented Boothby from ever being allowed to care for children, much less in the privacy of his own home," Seattle attorneys Allen Ressler and Timothy Tesh said in the lawsuit.

“After (the boy) was placed in the Boothby home, DSHS learned of multiple alarming allegations involving Boothby and failed to properly investigate them,” Ressler and Tesh continued. “DSHS had a duty to adequately investigate any and all allegations made regarding the Boothbys.”

Contacted Thursday, a DSHS spokeswoman said a juvenile conviction for sex crimes should disqualify an applicant from hosting foster children. She declined to comment on the allegations regarding Boothby.

According to the lawsuit, Boothby was 12 years old when he first admitted to molesting children.

Speaking with a DSHS worker in 1985, Boothby said he’d sexually abused at least five other children. Three years later, he admitted to sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy, prompting an investigation by Vancouver, Wash., police.

Boothby, then 14, ultimately pleaded guilty to indecent liberties in April 1988 and was sent to Echo Glen Children’s Center, a juvenile detention facility run by DSHS. He was sentenced to 65 weeks in custody, though it’s unclear how long he was held.

Twenty years later, Boothby was licensed as a foster parent.

The boy had been removed from his mother’s care months before and wound up at Boothby’s in early 2009. Boothby began raping the boy shortly thereafter and continued until the boy was taken in by an out-of-state relative the following year.

Confronted by King County Sheriff’s Office detectives after the boy told a relative of the abuse, Boothby admitted to sexually abusing three children in his care, including the boy.

Boothby ultimately pleaded guilty to child rape and received an 18-year prison sentence. Due to the nature of his offense, the Department of Corrections can keep him confined until he is deemed fit for release.

Following his sentencing, Boothby attempted to withdraw his guilty plea. To that end, he filed a lengthy statement to the court in which he admitted he was convicted of sex crimes as a child and described himself as a former foster child.

In the statement to the court, Boothby contended prosecutors wouldn’t have known of his childhood sex crimes had his attorney not notified them of his criminal record prior to sentencing. Court records show prosecutors were not initially aware of Boothby’s juvenile conviction, though they learned of them prior to his sentencing hearing.

Boothby claims to have worked at several care facilities, including Seattle’s Ryther Child Center. He claims to have been a “counselor for neglected children” there for two years beginning in 2006; he also claims to have worked as a psychiatric program specialist at Fairfax Hospital in Kirkland.

It was while he was working at Fairfax that the state approved him as a foster parent despite his juvenile criminal record.

Licensed in June 2008, Boothby was investigated in July 2009 after a report that he was trying to have “alone time” with an 11-year-old girl previously placed in his home. Boothby didn’t deny the allegations, but, according to the lawsuit, no action was taken.

Boothby was investigated again in March 2010 after he was seen kissing and hugging a 9-year-old girl placed at his home, the boy’s attorneys said in the lawsuit. The boy remained in the home for months afterward before moving in with relatives.

Filing the lawsuit earlier this month in King County Superior Court, the boy’s attorneys contend DSHS was negligent in vetting Boothby. The state has not yet responded to the claim.